M1 Pylon & Overhead Lines Survey

Digital Surveys were commisoned to produce a 3D LiDAR Survey of a 2.5km stretch of the M1, as part of an ongoing investigation into the feasibility of using the hard shoulder during peak times.

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A line of pylons ran parallel to the hard shoulder and more information was required to find out if large lorrys would pass dangerously close to the overhead lines. It was decided that by scanning the entire area the pylon designers could create a dimensionally accurate 3D model to simulate this.

Working on the M1 posed a number of issues due to the volume of traffic at all times of day. We decided that the best solution was to scan the pylons and road from the opposite side of the motorway with adequate traffic management in place. We decided to use our ScanStation2 because of its long range and high accuracy.

The ScanStation 2 has a range of 300m metres which made it ideal for traversing long distances along the motorway. We were able to scan the Pylons to an accuracy of 20mm however some movement was detected between scans due to the cables being blown by the wind.
The scanner was not able to pick up the channel of the road adjacent to the Pylons due to heavy traffic on the M1, which blocked the line of sight. To get around this the road edge was surveyed using GPS which could then be inserted into the model later. All the scanner stations were also recorded with GPS to tie the data onto the OS network.